


Crown you in Love not Metal

by victoriousscarf



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fingon is high king, Fingon's hair is a thing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:28:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were a thousand things Maedhros had to do, and it never felt as if he had the time to do them.</p><p>There were supplies to find, brothers to track down and strategize with, ruffled tempers to sooth, and war to prepare for—there was always war to prepare for. He could already feel the fingers of his hand itch to start doing, to complete the tasks in front of him.</p><p>Instead he sat, watching Fingon comb out his thick and crimped hair, the dawn barely rising above the mountains outside the window. Fingon’s heavy crown sat on the desk beside his elbow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crown you in Love not Metal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snartha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snartha/gifts).



> For the May 2015 tolkiensecretartexchange!

There were a thousand things Maedhros had to do, and it never felt as if he had the time to do them.

There were supplies to find, brothers to track down and strategize with, ruffled tempers to sooth, and war to prepare for—there was always war to prepare for. He could already feel the fingers of his hand itch to start doing, to complete the tasks in front of him.

Instead he sat, watching Fingon comb out his thick and crimped hair, the dawn barely rising above the mountains outside the window. Fingon’s heavy crown sat on the desk beside his elbow.

“I used to be able to do that for you,” he said, Fingon’s fingers twisting the gold ribbon between them and deftly into his braid. Fingon froze, missing the next twist and calmly setting the ribbon down and picking the brush back up.

“Is it not early?” he asked, not quite looking over at Maedhros. “To be remembering such things again?”

Maedhros looked back out the window to hide the ache in his chest, the tightening that made it hard to breathe for a moment. More red touched the tips of the mountains now and he tried to remember mornings long ago, when they had woken up in a tangle of limbs to bird song and laughed quietly against each other’s shoulders to muffle the sound.

It felt like thousands of years ago. Lifetimes, he thought, for mortal men, but he felt as ancient as if he had been one of the first elves to wake, back before the sun and moon were put in the sky.

Fingon shifted, drawing Maedhros’ eyes back to him. “You are usually maudlin,” he said, still twining ribbon into his dark hair. “But not this much.”

“It was a long night,” Maedhros admitted, because he could not sleep. He felt more at peace, counting Fingon’s heartbeats then he did when at his own home in an empty bed.

Fingon’s mouth twitched but he did not say anything, simply inclining his head to acknowledge the blow.

“I wish I could still braid your hair,” Maedhros said after a beat. He had managed a few sloppy plaits in the past centuries, but without his second hand, he could not quite master the complex pattern of Fingon’s hair.

“Of all the things we’ve given up,” Fingon said quietly, almost so quiet Maedhros was unsure if he was meant to hear. His eyes drifted out the window and Maedhros tried to convince himself to look away from the profile of Fingon’s face in the early morning light.

“I do though,” he said, hand curled in his lap and Fingon looked back over at him with a wry smile.

“You and my hair,” he said, and Maedhros almost managed to laugh at the memory. Before the exile, before the ice, Maedhros had effectively been obsessed with braiding and touching Fingon’s hair. They had sat for hours, beneath a tree in Valinor with Fingon’s back pressed against Maedhros’ chest, as Fingon taught him how to recreate his braids.

He had laughingly said he regretted it later, when Maedhros kept trying for weeks after that to show up in Fingon’s window to do his braids. “You and my hair,” he had said time after time, and had not since he reached Beleriand.

“Some things do not quite change,” Maedhros said and Fingon looked out the window again.

“No,” he murmured, tying off the end of the last braid before rising. His fingers lingered for a long moment on the crown that his father had worn for years. “Some things do though.”

Maedhros pushed himself up, walking over to cover one of Fingon’s hands with his own, pressing a kiss to his shoulder through his robes. “I could at least help with this.”

“You just wish to touch my hair,” Fingon shade, a pale imitation of his teasing tone.

“Yes,” Maedhros said, turning his head to hide a tiny smile in Fingon’s throat. He felt the skin under his mouth jump and Fingon tilted his head.

“Alright,” he said, and Maedhros slid his hand along Fingon’s, encountering cold metal. Wrapping his fingers around it, he lifted the crown as Fingon turned to look at him. Gently, he placed it over Fingon’s dark and gold braids, trying not to say how much it looked like Fingolfin and how little like Fingon.

“There,” he said. “You are ready to be king again.”

Which meant for the moment he was no longer Maedhros’ lover and they both stepped apart. “Are you sure your plan will work?” Fingon asked. “There are many who doubt.”

“There are many who doubt simply because of my father,” Maedhros said and Fingon’s mouth thinned but he nodded.

“You still must convince them,” he said.

“Do you believe it might work?” Maedhros asked and Fingon paused for a damningly long moment before nodding. “Or do you only hope it will work?”

“Hope and belief are not so different,” Fingon said, opening the door and stepping out. “And I hope we may defeat Morgoth yet.”

 


End file.
